While my Halloween experiences before age 5 are a bit of a blur, I have a clear memory of my fifth time trick-or-treating I was dressed in a dinosaur onesie, and toting my brand new orange plastic jack-o-lantern bucket. I walked the neighborhood with my younger brother, dressed in an identical dinosaur onesie, my parents and my younger sister, who was un-costumed, as she was only 1 year old. In my 5-year-old mind, it seemed as though we walked miles and miles, but in actuality we only walked about a five-block round trip. At every house, my brother and I skipped up to the door, rang the doorbell and waited impatiently. When the adult of the house opened the door, we would deliver the standard “Trick or treat!” line and were subsequently subjected to the usual “You guys are so CUTE” comments. We would then receive our candy and run down the driveway back to our parents and on to the next house.
When we got home after completing our rounds, we immediately dumped our haul out onto the floor to inspect what we had received and determine what was worth keeping and what was worth trading. My dad made his usual “10 percent to the house” joke, and we ignored him. We would then eat too much candy and be forced to go to bed with sugar coursing through our veins.
Trick-or-treating is a highly-valued yearly activity in almost every American child’s life. While some say that its value is that kids get to dress up and pretend to be someone or something else, I think the reason kids value trick-or-treating is because they receive free stuff.
Everyone loves getting free stuff. I think I can speak for most when I say that free samples at the bakery or grocery store can be the highlight of my day. Furthermore, kids love candy. The stereotypical picture of a child begging his mother for a candy bar from the checkout line at the grocery store is an accurate representation of me at age 7.
And I still love candy. Though my craving for sugar has somewhat abated since childhood, the idea of getting free candy from strangers is still exciting. Many parents nowadays, however, are skeptical or opposed to high school students trick-or-treating. I’ve heard many arguments that high-schoolers should be spending their time on more “mature” activities and that they should quit acting childish.
But I think that many high-schoolers still want to trick-or-treat precisely because is it a children’s activity. I think trick-or-treating provides a dose of nostalgia that high-schoolers crave. With all the pressures of high school, we don’t get many opportunities to act like children anymore. And, while we like to think that we are legitimate young adults, we still need times to forget the pressures that are a part of being a young adult, and sometimes the best way to do that is to run around getting free candy.
So regardless of what others may think, I went trick-or-treating this year. I wandered the neighborhood, gathering candy from people until I got tired of walking. I went home and dumped my candy on the floor, to see what was worth keeping and what was worth trading. My dad made his usual “10 percent to the house” joke, and I ignored it. I ate too much candy, and then went to bed, as sugar and nostalgia coursed through my veins.